Saturday, 23 January 2016

Still out of office, but...

As you'll have spotted, we've not been able to post anything much over the past week or two.

There's very little time today either, so - apart from that Jonty Bloom post above - here's a brief reprise of last Sunday's Sundayon Radio 4, which didn't do much to lessen the impression it often gives of being "the most liberal programme on Radio 4".

The Anglican meeting that sanctioned the Church in the United States over gay marriage was discussed with the bishop of Washington DC, Mariann Budde (above), who - naturally - took the US Episcopal Church's (liberal) side of the argument.

Then came a discussion on the government's legislation to regulated less-than-scrupulous charity campaigning. It featured someone who strongly opposes the government's policy and someone else who fairly strongly opposes the government's policy. It's surprising how often this kind of thing happens on Sunday.

Then came a report on Germany's "sanctuary churches", described as the last resort for refugees. We heard from various refugees - a Muslim and a young Yazidi who was told not to reveal name of church because of threat from "anti-immigrant groups" - plus the scheme's organisers and backers. As you can imagine, all were singing from the same (pro-migrant) hymn-sheet here. (O Come All Ye Migrants by the sounds of it).

After a bit on a monastic cookbook came a Trevor Barnes report on the Anglican primates' meeting which did strike me as being fully balanced between the wings of the Church...

...however, the final studio interview was with Jayne Ozanne, the woman who called for the church to apologise over its treatment of gays. (Various Archbishops and bishops had "declined" to appear, apparently, and Sunday chose not to invite anyone else from the other side to balance the discussion).